(Thank you to @realityphobia for requesting this fic!)
“Is journalism a popular career for superheroes?” Ma wondered.
Clark’s super-speed came to a halt, on his knees in the freshly-composted field. “What?”
“Not every superhero can be a princess or a billionaire,” she said. “They’ve got to have day jobs, most of them.” She was sitting on a fence post made out of a thick log, nursing an enormous cup of coffee.
“Not all of them,” Pa said, dropping seeds into soil much slower than his son. “Some of them are aliens.”
Ma and Clark looked at each other.
“Alien aliens,” he clarified.
“Aliens still need groceries,” Ma said.
“We do,” Clark confirmed.
“I didn’t mean you,” Pa said, but Clark made a noncommittal noise that passively indicated that his father did not get to decide when Clark did and did not count as an alien.
“Those Lanterns get paid, don’t they?” Pa asked.
“You sound very sure of yourself,” Clark said.
“It’s a job,” Pa said. “They’re space cops, answering to an alien government. I heard about it on YouTube.”
“You need to stop watching those videos,” Ma warned.
“The Lantern Corps doesn’t pay,” Clark said.
“Maybe not in Earth money,” Pa said.
“How’re they gonna spend it if it’s not Earth money?” Ma demanded.
“Let’s not have this conversation again,” Clark interrupted, before anyone could say anything about space capitalism.
“Just doesn’t seem right to have unpaid interns as space cops, is all,” Pa said. He turned his seed packet upside-down, but nothing else came out. Clark disappeared with a wake of wind and reappeared with another packet.
“It’s a volunteer position,” Clark said, handing the seeds off to his father, “just like Superman.”
“Superman doesn’t have a boss,” Pa said.
“I don’t think the Lanterns have bosses, necessarily.”
“They oughta unionize,” Pa said. Clark rubbed the bridge of his nose, leaving dirt smudged there.
“There’s gotta be a lot of private detectives in your line of work,” Ma said. “Right? I think that’s what I’d do, if I was being a superhero anyway.” She seemed a little wistful about it.
“I… there’s a couple,” Clark admitted, since it felt vague enough to be safe.
“Any Earth cops?” Pa wondered.
“Oh, that doesn’t seem ethical,” Ma said. “Cops dressing up and getting evidence without a warrant.”
“Ma, none of us have warrants,” Clark said.
“That’s different,” she said. “There aren’t cops, are there?”
“You know I can’t tell you about people’s identities,” Clark said.
“You’d have said if there weren’t!”
“He’s not that kind of cop,” Clark said, giving up on secrecy. “He’s a forensic investigator and he keeps his jobs separate.”
“Hmm.” Ma narrowed her eyes suspiciously but didn’t press the issue.
“Bet there’s bloggers,” Pa said with a knowing nod. “They don’t have to wear pants.”
“I’m not clear on why you think that’s relevant.”
Pa tapped his temple, depositing celery seed into his hair. “Think about it.”
“I think you’ve got the right of it,” Ma said, and Pa looked vindicated. “Not for the right reasons,” she added, and Pa wilted. “That kinda thing’s gotta be more likely than holding down a nine-to-five when you’re fighting robots in long johns.”
“When you say it like that, it sounds like the robots are wearing long johns,” Clark pointed out.
“Which YouTubers are in the League?” Pa asked. “Any that I watch?”
“Is it Leo? I bet it’s Leo.”
“I don’t know who that is.”
“You oughta set up a commune,” Ma decided. “Then you can all be heroes full time, instead of worrying about rent and such,” she said. “Use your powers to be self-sufficient and all.”
“Ma, that's—people can live at the Watchtower, if they want.” Clark felt that this was an important clarification. “No one wants to. It’s not close enough to anything, nothing delivers. Even if it wasn’t so isolated, I don’t think anyone would want to join a commune with each other. Didn’t you burn down your last commune?”
“Threatened to,” Ma said. “Not that they wouldn’t have deserved it if I had.”
“I don’t think you should be advocating communal living with your history, is all I’m saying,” Clark said.
“I’m a special case,” she said with a wrinkle of her nose.
“She doesn’t work well with others,” Pa said, leaning on the fence.
“I do, too!” she insisted, threatening to kick him with one of her boots but failing to reach.
“The hell with her, anyway,” Ma said before he could say anything else. “That doesn’t mean anything, no one worked well with Donna. Donna didn’t work. Just wanted to look like she was walking the walk, but when it was her turn to help with the corn, she was busy painting signs. It can’t all be painting signs!”
“It’s still a good idea,” Ma insisted. “Not every commune’s gonna have a Donna.”
“I think they do,” Pa sighed. “There’s always a Donna.”
“I don’t think Bruce is going to want to join the Justice Commune.”
“He’s a billionaire,” Ma said. “You can exclude the one billionaire.”
“Three.” Clark paused. “That I know of.”
Ma scowled over her coffee. “I’m nice about Bruce because I like him,” she warned, “but I don’t like you hanging out with that crowd.”
“At least one of those billionaires is a socialist.”
“Now that just doesn’t make any dang sense.”
“He might be the Donna, actually.” Clark checked his phone. “I need to get home and shower before work.” He swept his parents up in a hug. “Want me to swing by over lunch?”
“We’ve got it handled,” Pa assured him.
“Text me if you need anything,” Clark said, lifting off the ground.
“Have fun at work,” Ma said with a wave, before he took off in earnest and disappeared into the sky. She reached over, and brushed celery seed out of Pa’s hair.
“I bet Leo’s the guy with the bow,” Pa said. “I know he didn’t say that, but I feel like it was implied.”
